


They Think We're Dating

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 09:48:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4620756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for a prompt on tumblr. Students gossip; teachers overhear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Think We're Dating

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Они считают, что мы встречаемся](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11440860) by [SollyDoll](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SollyDoll/pseuds/SollyDoll)



“They think we’re dating.”

Shuuzou almost spits out his coffee. “I’m sorry, what? Who?”

“Some students think we’re dating,” Tatsuya repeats.

Shuuzou coughs. “How? Why? Not that I’m objecting to you or anything—”

Tatsuya holds up a slim hand, laughing that way he does sometimes where his shoulders dip and shake and his mouth spreads wide on his face and he looks so damn happy and unguarded for a moment and it’s one of Shuuzou’s favorite expressions of Tatsuya’s. And beyond not objecting to Tatsuya, Shuuzou would very much like to date him, if he could only work up the courage after nearly ten years of friendship. But he can’t; the time is always wrong or the situation won’t let things get going or he’s scared of pushing Tatsuya away—even now, he is a little bit. Even now, Tatsuya could figure out a new time for breaks, avoid being in the teachers’ lounge at the same time as Shuuzou. He’s a master of evasion when he wants to be, whether it’s for shirking responsibility or not wanting to face someone.

He lowers his hand and leans in, mock-conspiratorially. “Apparently, Momoi from my homeroom overheard you thanking me for letting you stay overnight, and she told Takao from your homeroom and Furihata from 1-A, and they’ve gone off to tell all of their friends, too.”

“Lovely,” says Shuuzou. “Do they not understand that friends do things like that sometimes?”

“Apparently not,” says Tatsuya.

* * *

 

He’s right—and Shuuzou supposes that the students don’t have much excitement in their lives other than extracurricular activities and preparing for college, so speculating on their teachers’ love lives is one way to pass the time. Still, whenever Tatsuya stops by his classroom to chat at the end of the day, or whenever they wave to each other in the halls, Shuuzou can see the heads turn and feel the gossip starting like arrows strung into quivers and shot again and again from student to student.

“It’s getting worse,” Shuuzou says.

Tatsuya’s sitting on the edge of his desk, bracing his legs against the side. He looks over his shoulder and raises his visible eyebrow. “How so?”

“Takao asked me this morning how long our relationship had been at its ‘current status.’”

Tatsuya laughs (and this laugh is beautiful, too; if Shuuzou could spend the rest of his life making Tatsuya laugh he’d be content with that as long as he got to watch it).

“And what did you say?”

“I told him the truth, but now he thinks we’ve been dating since high school.”

Tatsuya shakes his head, then lightly shoves Shuuzou’s shoulder. Shuuzou responds by shoving him off the desk and immediately placing a textbook over where Tatsuya had been sitting.

“Is that any way to treat your long-term boyfriend?”

Shuuzou rolls his eyes but can’t hide the smile (and can’t stop himself from wishing it were true).

* * *

 

Shuuzou hates autumn rain, and he’s very prone to forgetting his umbrella so he always leaves it in his bag and it ends up coming in quite useful some of the time. Still, on a day like this when it’s been cloudy all morning and afternoon and the forecast calls for heavy showers, he hopes desperately for the rain to hold off until he’s home, or to just happen and pass before the end of the school day, and it looks as if the former is going to happen by the time he dismisses his students. And when the classroom is all ready for tomorrow and he’s gathered his things, the clouds outside are ominous but there’s no rain.

By the time he gets downstairs the skies have opened up. Tatsuya’s in the vestibule, biting his lip and looking out of the glass door.

“Do you think it’s going to stop any time soon?”

“Like a flash flood?” says Shuuzou. “Doubt it.”

Tatsuya sighs. “Shuu?”

“Tatsuya?”

“Can I be so forward as to ask to share your umbrella? I know I live close, but a few blocks in this rain…”

Shuuzou understands completely—but he’s still stuck on the first sentence, how Tatsuya had phrased it—had he meant it that way? They’re a little too old to be playing sweethearts, even if half of their students think they’re dating (not that if anyone sees, they won’t use it as fuel for that particular fire). But, hey, even if it’s utterly unromantic he’ll get to walk Tatsuya home under an umbrella and that’s something.

“No problem,” says Shuuzou, and he opens up the umbrella.

It’s an inexpensive but reliable folding umbrella, and when it’s just him Shuuzou doesn’t even think about how small it is—but when he adds Tatsuya into the mix, they have to huddle together to keep their elbows from getting soaked by the falling rain.

“They’re really going to talk now,” says Shuuzou (they’re almost on top of each other and he can’t even look at Tatsuya).

“What, because we’re walking so close together? It’s hard not to under here, unless you want me to step out?”

“No. Don’t get wet for nothing; we’re already halfway there.”

He sneaks a glance at Tatsuya’s face, and Tatsuya looks genuinely curious rather than wholly amused and fuck, it’s so cute. Shuuzou sighs.

“Anyway, you know the whole ‘umbrella of love’ thing?”

Tatsuya grins. “Umbrella of love? Like when a dashing young man like you sweeps a poor umbrella-less person like me off his feet by offering to share?”

Shuuzou snorts and elbows Tatsuya in the side. “No. It’s just…sharing an umbrella, you know, has this…connotation, I guess, here. Like you only do it with your special someone.”

“And you agreed to do it with me? Aww, Shuu.”

The street ahead is even blurrier through the pouring rain; the drops land one right after the other on top of the umbrella like the sound of Tatsuya’s fingers drumming on the desk when he’s sitting on it and he’s just sent piles of neatly-graded papers cascading to the floor like a waterfall and fuck.

“I kind of…thought you meant it for a second there.”

They stop at the corner; the barely-visible light is red and even though there are no cars visible they can’t exactly see that far and cars can’t exactly stop that quickly in this kind of rain but it makes everything just a little bit more awkward. Shuuzou glances back down to Tatsuya, meeting his firm, searching glance. Tatsuya breathes out; the air condenses around his mouth like a cloud of dandelion seeds.

“I was…hoping you did mean it,” Shuuzou says, loud enough for Tatsuya to definitely hear it.

A car zooms past them, splattering their already-soaked shoes and the hems of their pants with cold, dirty city gutter water; Shuuzou stumbles back and Tatsuya catches his back before he falls. Shuuzou’s shirt is not thick enough to disguise the contours of Tatsuya’s hand, the firmness of the pads of his fingers.

“Is it because of what they were saying? You’ve been enjoying this?”

“Well, yeah, I have, but…Tatsuya.”

Hearing his name, he looks back up.

“It’s been this way for a while, you know. Years, ever since I met you—I was attracted to you and then I got to know you but the time was never right and I felt like too much of a coward waiting this long but I didn’t want to scare you off and…”

He lets the sentence trail off, because there’s more to it than that but even in his native language he can’t express himself the way the hero of some light novel would, while the street lights cast their lights through the top of a red umbrella, even if the setting is sort of half-right. (Maybe that kind of hero would have confessed before he even got under the umbrella, because the love interest probably would have known exactly what it meant.)

“I know the time isn’t really right now, either—” Shuuzou begins.

And then Tatsuya kisses him and he almost drops the umbrella; Tatsuya’s lips are cold but soft and smooth and he tastes like salted caramel and something more bitter and his nose is wet pressing awkwardly against Shuuzou’s face but it’s the best feeling ever and if only both of Shuuzou’s arms were free so he could hold Tatsuya properly, touch his face or his neck or his waist or something, but he settles for one arm around Tatsuya’s shoulders because it’s the best they’re going to do right now. And it’s good enough to stay there the rest of the way to Tatsuya’s apartment building.


End file.
